What’s in a Street Name?
By Albert B. Kelly
If you are reading this,
then in all likelihood it’s the Martin Luther King Jr holiday and various
groups in communities throughout our region and across the country will be
honoring the memory of this great man and his message in a variety of ways.
It’s sort of strange these
days because his memory, like his message, is both urgent while at the same
time seeming disconnected to what’s happening in terms of race in our country. It’s
easy enough to do the holiday by rote- toss around a couple of quotes from “I
have a Dream” and you’re good to go.
If you’re willing to reach
a little deeper, there’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” or the “Drum Major
Instinct”. His sermons are timeless. And all lend context to today’s problems-
they’re still important.
But driving down Martin
Luther King Jr Way (Formerly Willow Street) here in Bridgeton recently, I began
to wonder about the actual number of streets in this country named for MLK and
what, if anything, this says about him or how things are today.
I don’t have many truly
original ideas and I was getting ready to pat myself on the back thinking that this
street thing might be a fresh one, until I began to do a little research and
discovered that the topic had been fairly well covered.
It turns out that
University of North Texas graduate student Eric Katzenberger and University of
Texas at Dallas associate economics Professor Nathan Berg teamed up back in
2011 to research MLK streets and the connection (or lack of connection) with
crime and poverty.
Several years before that,
Jonathan Tilove and Michael Falco visited over 600 MLK streets in dozens of
states researching their book “Along Martin Luther King: Travels on Black
America's Main Street”; while meeting residents along the way and telling their
stories.
So while the topic is fairly
well researched, it was new for me as it may be for you. That said there are,
according to Katzenberger and Berg, 730 streets, boulevards, highways and roads
named after MLK.
Eighty-five percent of
these are found in the states of the old south- the cradle of the Civil War, no
real surprise here; yet there are MLK streets to be found in Colorado, Nevada,
Wisconsin, Utah, Kansas, Illinois, New York and right here in Bridgeton.
While Dr. King did most of
his work in the south throughout the late 1950’s and into the 1960’s; toward
the end of his life (1966 to 1968) he focused on conditions in the northern
states. As dangerous and vexing as the problems were in the Deep South, he saw the
north as a far more difficult place to bring about change.
The systemic racism in the
north was of a subtler sort (i.e., banking, real estate, education, employment,
redistricting), and it didn’t come connected to a fire hose or a leash with a
snarling dog attached to the end of it- it
didn’t have quite the same TV shock value and was easier to dismiss. Such was
the north, where some cities burned with or without MLK streets.
Nearly 50 years after
King’s assassination, as per the Katzenberger/Berg research of census tracts, the
neighborhoods bearing his name around the country, mostly minority, have a
household income of approximately $31k compared to the national average of $51k.
Here in Bridgeton, Martin
Luther King Jr. Way is located in Census Tract 205. It is 64% African-American
with 81% of the families living there considered low-income. The unemployment
rate is 19% with 38% living below the poverty line.
Is anyone surprised that so
many MLK neighborhoods, including our own, are mostly poor? In fairness, for
what it’s worth, an article using that research by Mellina Stucky indicates
that 20% of MLK streets are located in all white and very wealthy areas. Go
figure.
So what does it say that
80% of MLK neighborhoods struggle with poverty, unemployment, and a sense of
despair and why should anyone care? I suppose that largely depends on whose
eyes you’re looking through.
For the truly cynical,
they’ll say it’s self-inflicted; the dream’s a fraud. For others, it’s just
some low-cost low-risk symbolism to be mocked or ignored.
For the rest of us, it’s a
reminder of past battles waged- by individuals and groups- like Union Baptist
Temple at the intersection of MLK and South Ave; a daily reminder of what we’re
reaching for and why.